Killer Commute (31 page)

“Jeremy promised me if I kept still about it and didn't ask questions I'd know soon enough and he'd see I was taken care of. He was always so dependable, I believed him. But I still got good neighbors, don't I?”

Charlie hadn't thought Betty capable of keeping such a secret even for a month. But she'd never thought to question Jeremy, either.

Johann Sebastian Amuller had come to collect the loot in the Hefty bags. He gave Charlie a suspicious squint, but made no new threats as to her imminent arrest for Jeremy's murder. His brother offered a far better motive and obvious intent to kill as witnessed by neighbors, a noted lawyer, and a well-known ex-Lieutenant in the Beverly Hill's homicide department, all able and willing to testify on Charlie's behalf. J. S. knew he was right, but he couldn't prove it. He trusted his gut and his prejudices and
Good Cops, Bad Guys.
Charlie hoped she'd never have to deal with him again.

“I wonder what the good Jeremy told Tuxedo that day we all sat here and called him up from the dead?” Libby said out of the blue where she came from, bless her. “'Cause what he told me sure came true. ‘Watch out for Rory Torkelsen.'”

“Me too,” Betty said, and so did Maggie. They all looked to the top of the refrigerator into the half-lidded eyes of the inscrutable feline. Tuxedo's yawn was the only answer.

“What do you mean, yours came true?” Charlie the mom overreacted. “Rory Torkelsen—”

“Yeah, tried to strong-arm me into one of the little boys' rooms last Friday at school. Had some friends in there already telling me how I'd pay if I ever told on them.”

“Did they—?” Charlie started.

“You didn't break his spine, too?” Maggie the lawyer broke in. “Or those of his friends?”

“His friends are fine. He's still walking kind of funny, though. Mo-om, don't look at me that way. I saved everybody from the wrong Jeremy and you still think you have to protect me.” Libby left the room, disgust hovering in her wake. Tuxedo jumped from the refrigerator to the counter to the floor and pranced after her with a look of disdain for Charlie.

Charlie gave him the bird, but he didn't notice.

Betty Beesom did but she said, “He warned me against Harry, too. ‘Watch out for Harry,' he said in my head, and I didn't listen.”

“You too, Maggie?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, ‘watch out for Mel.' Yesterday while Libby was protecting you and outsmarting our murderer, I took the liberty of listening to Mel's answering machine while he was in the shower after never mind and guess how many girlfriends he's servicing? I thought it would be full of his wife's savagery, as he described it. These were all women wanting to know why he hadn't returned their calls, or—” She shrugged. “You and Jeremy were right I guess, Charlie.”

“Oh, Stutzman, I didn't want to be right. It's just you're way too good for him. Way, way—”

“Yeah, well, now that Hilsten's engaged we can go bar hopping and pick up guys together. Right?”

Charlie knew they had all imagined Jeremy's individualized warnings because of the stress caused by murder in the compound. She didn't give the matter, or her own warning from Jeremy, another thought. Until the next morning on her commute to work on the 405.

CHAPTER 41

CHARLIE
SAT IN
a grid on the 405, drying her hair and drinking coffee. What did Mitch want with a bubblehead and fake boobs? Oh well, he must really be lonely. Before traffic resumed she'd talked to Keegan Monroe, so excited to be back in his own house—a very nice habitat in Coldwater Canyon—and enjoying having to fight off the press, something rarely required of a writer. He rhapsodized over the food he was cooking for himself. He couldn't sleep yet, but the nightmare of prison would take a while to lose its hold. And last night he'd even been out to Residuals on Ventura Boulevard, a restaurant bar that displayed the tiniest checks ever to get through the entertainment industry's cookbooking to the folks who did the work.

She'd finished her bagel and, in pain the whole time, wrestled her pantyhose on. She got one call off to New York, and stuck in her earrings before traffic started moving again. As always it roared past going the other way. But not bad for one grid.

Mostly Charlie was enjoying not having to face a trial and jail time, cherishing the traffic sounds—(please let them last), rejoicing in being in charge of the Toyota and her life and her work and the routine of it all. An exciting job full of stress beat the hell out of being handicapped. She was blessed. She and her kid were alive.

But Charlie would never again try to put her pantyhose on in the car until her rib had mended. Even getting in and out of the Toyota without twisting your torso was impossible if you were the one behind the wheel. In the ER they'd suggested she let her husband drive for a few months.
Grrrrr.

But she was not about to complain because this morning looked wonderful after her catastrophic vacation. She vowed to work till she dropped. That was the only safe way for Charlie Greene.

That was also about the time a semi going the other way jumped the meridian between north and south on the 405 and headed straight for the Toyota after taking out a few SUVs in front of her. It was too late to change lanes. Or was it?

Jeremy and Hairy and Tuxedo were not staring at her from the big rig's windshield either, and she did not accompany the Toyota up its radiator like in her dream. She did hear herself screaming and cursing as she wormed the little, crushable, parkable, familiar Toyota over between two other SUVs.

The one in front of her climbed the semi's hood. She managed another worm into the next lane over where traffic was really slowing down, and then to the next. Where she and her ribcage and her beloved Toyota joined she-couldn't-tell-how-many cars and trucks and everything-in-between in a crunch that shoved it all into what looked like a grassy ditch before the dependable old gray Toyota bent its ribcage in the middle, and Charlie, too.

“That one alive?”

“She's breathing. Cut some more metal and I think I can pull her out.”

I have my earrings on. I can hear you. “Don't leave my computer behind. I already have a broken rib.”

“She say something?”

“Gibberish. Now, pull—”

*   *   *

Charlie was almost resigned to coming to in life or death with talking heads leaning over her. The three in focus at the moment were Edwina, Libby, and Mitch Hilsten. They were all grinning. Grinning expectantly, sliding quick glances at each other, waiting for her to say something first.

She'd let them wait.

Something had happened on the 405 but she couldn't remember what. Something bad. But she could hear, so that was good. She could hear hospital sounds, people being paged, squeaky wheels moving down the hallways, the purposeful steps of sensible rubber-soled shoes as staff moved about, the scritch of privacy curtains pulled back or forth between beds. The lighting above her and drip stands beside her clinched it.

Nothing hurt anywhere on her body, not even her rib—drugs. In fact, she felt unusually optimistic—good drugs. She wiggled her fingers and toes, wrinkled her nose, tried feet, hands. It couldn't be too bad or they wouldn't be grinning so hard.

Edwina's hair had morphed from a lank, dishwater, salt-and-pepper brown to a fluffy beige bob. Breast-cancer surgery and its everlasting aftermath had turned her mother into a total stranger. She even wore makeup and earrings.

Mitch was just Mitch—after Larry Mann, the second best-looking man in the world. But looks weren't everything.

The fact Libby Abigail Greene was standing next to Mitch without snarling was really amazing. They were all focused on Charlie and they were all happy—what?

The 405—hospital—Charlie tried to sit up and the drips rattled on their stands and her rib tweaked through the drugs and she said, “The Toyota? My car? Is it—?”

Edwina and Libby stopped grinning. Mitch let loose his full extreme gleam, and female grunts and sighs emanated from the other side of the bed, staff. He put out both hands and her daughter and her mother slapped some bills on his palms. A bet. They'd bet on her first words. He'd won. What did the women in her life think she'd say first?

“I thought you'd want to know about my new friend.” Charlie's mother typically answered the unasked question instead of the one Charlie had voiced.

“You were supposed to ask about Deena Gotmor,” her daughter griped.

“The Toyota's gone, Charlie, but look at it this way—you have an excuse to buy a new car,” Mitch said.

“Mom, it was the color of dead fish guts anyway. You should be glad to be rid of it.”

“It was an old and loyal friend, wasn't it, Charlie?” When your mother actually understands you, you really feel old. Charlie felt something like mourning through the drugs. Mourning for her office on the road.

“Anyway,” Libby said, “your warning from Jeremy came true, too. Now they're all in. So we don't have to worry about that, like waiting for the other shoe.”

There was a mirror over a sink directly in line between Mitch and Libby, and for a breath-stopping minute Charlie could have sworn she saw Jeremy Fiedler in it, looking back at her.

“Except for Tuxedo,” Libby continued. “We don't know what Jeremy told him. But he's got nine lives. And Tux is still dragging chewed up hundred-dollar bills into the house.”

The Jeremy Fiedler, who was dead and could not possibly have any reflection in any mirror, winked at Charlie and disappeared from over the sink.

 

A
LSO BY
M
ARLYS
M
ILLHISER

FEATURING CHARLIE GREENE

Nobody Dies in a Casino

It's Murder Going Home

Murder in a Hot Flash

Death of the Office Witch

Murder at Moot Point

 

OTHER NOVELS

Michael's Wife

Nella Waits

Willing Hostage

The Mirror

Nightmare County

The Threshold

KILLER COMMUTE.
Copyright © 2000 by Marlys Millhiser. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Millhiser, Marlys.

Killer commute / Marlys Millhiser.—1st ed.

p. c.m.

ISBN 0-312-26610-3

1. Greene, Charlie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—California—Long Beach—Fiction. 3. Long Beach (Calif.)—Fiction. 4. Literary agents—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3563.I4225 K55 2000

813'.54—dc21

00-040255

First Edition: October 2000

eISBN 9781466843370

First eBook edition: March 2013